confused about what I need for RAID 1

[ebenhero]

I'm planning on purchasing an old Powermac G4 to set up as a home server: I plan to place 2x250gB drives in it, and set up a RAID 1 system (one drive the mirror of the other). I'm confused about a few things.
- if I buy a Quicksilver 2002 or later Powermac (with support for large drives), would I need to buy a PCI card to support the large drives or could I just connect the drives to the internal ATA bays?
- could I use these drives in addition to the smaller 40gB (or so) drive the computer comes with, which I would house the OS on?
- if I was to buy a PCI card, would it be best that it was a RAID card? Or just a 2-port SATA or ATA card? (and which of these would be preferable?)
- and again, could I still use the smaller drive in addition to the larger drives?

Thanks for responses. I really have trawled both these forums and the wider net and become more and more confused.

Cheers

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

If you want/need a HARDWARE Raid, then yes, you will have to buy a RAID controller card. OTOH, if OS X's software raid will do what you need it to do, then you will be fine with the 2 HDD's alone.

If the HDD's are SATA (which are faster), then you would need an SATA controller card anyways, so you might as well get one that can do RAID as well......

do a google on both Mac hdwr and software raids......their capabilities are significantly different.......ie speed, reliability, bootability etc etc

some useful info:

http://www.macgurus.com/guides/storageaccelguide.php

http://www.insanely-great.com/reviews/scsi.html#raid

 

[disconap]

What the smurf said.

As for the size question, you can use a smaller drive, but then the RAID will be the size of that drive (RAID 1 set-ups will be the size and speed of the slowest, smallest drive in the configuration).

 

[ebenhero]

Thanks for the replies. In your opinions though, given I want to use the machine as a server for itunes, iphotos, etc, hooked up to an Airport Extreme, will a software RAID using IDE drives be sufficient? (with a Powermac that can handle big drives). Or would purchasing a SATA PCI card make a difference that I would notice? I don't want to spend money needlessly.

And my question about the small drive was whether that could be used (to house OSX) in addition to the RAID drives.

Cheers

 

[disconap]

It can be used separately, yes.

As for the rest, I'm not sure I understand the question, but if you just want a slightly more secure storage set up (RAID 1), then my suggestion is to just use the controllers already in your machine (set up your raid drives in the main bay and put your OS drive on the same IDE controller as your optical drive).

 

[disconap]

Or just test it out that way. If it doesn't work for you, buy the PCI card. Saves you the money if it turns out you don't need it.

 

[ebenhero]

Thanks. You have answered my question!

 

[disconap]

Any time! Glad to help.

 

[ebenhero]

I've picked up a second-hand Quicksilver (2002) 933MHz machine and am going to put a SATA PCI card in it. At the moment I'm tossing up between the Sonnet Tempo 2-port Serial ATA and FirmTek SeriTek/1S2 cards (other than the colour of the boards, these look identical: are they made by the same company?). But given your comment above about buying a dedicated RAID card, I've tried to seach for one, but without much luck. Is there such a thing as a SATA RAID card for the Mac? And if so, which one would you recommend?

And one more question: where is the best place in a Quicksilver to physically place the third hard-drive? Will I need to buy an extra housing support?

Thanks again for you help.

Cheers